PhotoDude.com

Tue. Jul 08, 2003

Fluid Costs

Fluid Costs – We humans value things in funny ways. Especially when it comes to fluids. This one’s been percolating in my mind for a while, and was brought forth by this: “Ink for home printers is now seven times more expensive than vintage champagne. Ink in a typical replacement cartridge costs about 1.70 per millilitre, compared with 1985 Dom Perignon at 23p per millilitre.”

Well, dang it, my poor Yank brain lacks reference for these millilitres, pounds, and pence, so I’ve converted this to Real American. Ounces, dollars, and pennies. Assuming 1 fluid ounce = 29.57 milliliters, and 1.70 = $2.83, we get the following:
Ink Jet Ink = $83.68/ounce (based on the above numbers, but it sounds a bit high to me)
1985 Dom Perignon = $5.92/ounce (based on $200/liter bottle, the going rate I found online)

An interesting comparision of expensive substances. But what I find absolutely fascinating and totally perverse is the other end of the scale. Cheap fluids.

Over the past decade, we’ve been nearly drowned in a sea of bottled water products from a huge number of companies. What could be more plentiful, and therefore, cheap? Half a grocery store aisle is now devoted to various sized containers of H20 (and the below prices are from my last trip):
Bottled water = $0.03/ounce ($2.99 for 6 pack of 16 ounce bottles)

Three cents per ounce. Good golly, it’s right there under your feet, all you have to do is get it to the surface, bottle it, and get it to the store. What could be cheaper than water?

Water with stuff added to it:
Soft drink = $0.02/ounce ($2.50 for 6 pack of 20 ounce bottles of Mountain Dew)

They took water, already cheap, then added stuff to it, and made it cheaper!!! How do they do it? Not only do you get the aforementioned water, it’s now carbonated. And they add to it more expensive ingredients like high fructose corn syrup, sodium benzoate (preserves freshness, no more stale water!), Yellow #5, and my favorites, caffeine and gum arabic … then they charge a third less than they do for water!

As perverse as that is, surely there is no fluid cheaper. What could be cheaper than two cents per ounce?
Gasoline = 0.015/ounce ($1.92 gallon, 128 ounces)

A penny and a half per ounce (and gas in Atlanta is much cheaper than that). They spend years locating oil reserves, spend millions drilling and bringing the oil to the surface, millions more to transport it to port, then onto a ship, and half way around the world. Somewhere on the long trip it gets processed into a form your car can use, and is once again transported to a gas station near you.

And it’s half the price of the bottled water you chug on a hot day.

That, my friends, is far more perverse than the price of printer ink.